


you remain

by beili



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Genderbending, Movie: Skyfall (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 04:46:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5150801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beili/pseuds/beili
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, Q finally decides, she has become too preoccupied with the matter of Bond to properly react. Maybe next time she should try touching back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you remain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Castillon02](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/gifts).



> Written for [Castillon02](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02) 's prompt at [OOQ New Year Party](http://00qnewyearparty.tumblr.com/) Halloween exchange. The prompt:
> 
> Q is touch-starved and Bond notices and tries to help.
> 
> +James tries to preserve their strong platonic relationship at first  
> +Q feels frustrated because Bond's casual touches are not enough  
> +Lots of cuddling eventually happens  
> +Whether their relationship stays platonic or turns sexual is up to you!
> 
> Dear Castillon02, I managed to include fluff and some h/c (more heavily on the side of comfort); and genderbent from your "nice to have" list. I hope you enjoy this little story.
> 
> My eternal gratitude goes to [Val Mora](http://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/), [obfuscatress](http://archiveofourown.org/users/obfuscatress/) and [emsdispatch](http://emsdispatch.tumblr.com/) for holding my hand through this and for their absolutely fantastic beta. You lovely people are the champions. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

Q isn’t entirely sure when this new thing with Bond could have possibly started, but she becomes aware of it when Bond’s hand brushes hers over the replacement field kit.

She’d meant to give everything to Bond just like she always does – quickly, efficiently, and with little fanfare. But this time, instead of just taking the radio, Bond brushes her fingers lightly over Q’s, and something short-circuits in Q’s brain.

“Q?” Bond says, “Q, are you alright? You look rather pale”.

She must have stopped mid-sentence at some point, Q realizes. Her pulse is thudding in her ears. She’s still staring at Bond’s hand, which has slipped around her wrist, a warm, gentle pressure. When she finally raises her head, Bond is frowning – a single wrinkle between her elegant eyebrows. Bond looks – almost concerned, like she’s moments away from letting go of Q’s hand and pressing the back of her perfectly-manicured hand to Q’s forehead instead. Q’s cheeks burn, and she frees her wrist with a quick tug, finally dropping the radio into the cup of Bond’s palm.

“Apologies, 007,” Q says crisply, “Let’s continue.” She absolutely isn’t watching the way Bond’s fingers curl around the tiny radio.

\--

The thing is, Q muses to herself after she brings their meeting to a swift close and retreats into the relative safety of her office, none of this is new. There's no reason to lie to herself: she'd had a crush on Bond since they first met at the National Gallery. In the eighteen months that followed, it had morphed from sharp and immediate desire into something much warmer; even their terse, pointed banter is now more familiar, comfortable. Q thinks she might be Bond’s friend now, or as close to one as the woman allows herself to have. It’s just that she hadn’t realized how often Bond actually touches her until The Radio Incident.

She slumps in her chair and presses a palm to her burning face. It had been entirely too long since anyone had put a hand on her like that – except, apparently, 007. Q hadn’t realized before how much physical contact Bond initiates. There’s a gentle brush of fingers when Bond returns what’s left of her issued tech; the careful press of a hand on the small of Q’s back when they enter the lift together after being summoned to Mallory’s office. There was, memorably, a steadying press of Bond’s palm against the back of Q’s neck late one night, when Q’d been up for more than forty hours, and didn't quite know what day it was anymore. Q only remembers that one in bits and pieces, but the memory still makes her shiver a little. The truth is – the truth is, she’d already realized that she doesn’t want just any scrap of attention Bond is willing to give; hiding from that thought is pointless. She’s burning for something that isn’t careful, or casual, or fleeting.

Too bad none of it seems to mean a thing to Bond.

\--

Bond brings the game to the next level when she’s back from her latest mission. One moment Q is straightening the skirt of her suit – the better one she uses for disciplinary hearings and budget meetings, when she absolutely cannot afford looking like she’s still twelve and only concerned with tech, because she’s _not_ – and the next moment, the door into her office pings, and 007 strides right in. She brings peace offerings: the half-melted gun (which is better than nothing at all, but still _outrageous_ ) and a cup of tea. Q sips the tea, side-eyes the gun mournfully, and completely misses the moment when Bond steps closer, pulls a comb out of her pocket, and undoes the ponytail Q spent the better part of the last fifteen minutes fiddling with. The hair-tie ends up on the workbench, and then Bond steps neatly around Q and starts brushing and twisting her hair, fingers quick and sure. Q stands stock-still, too stunned to react – she can feel Bond sliding the hairpins in; Bond turns her around and musses up Q’s fringe in a calculated move. Q can see where the hair at Bond’s left temple has been singed; there’s an angry red line on the side of Bond’s neck, another one high on her cheekbone. Her eyes are washed-out in the harsh fluorescent light of Q’s office, and Q can’t look away.

“There,” Bond says, straightening Q’s collar with an economical, practiced movement. “Much better.”

Q nods in gratitude – she doesn’t quite trust her voice. Bond tucks a wayward strand of hair behind Q's ear and is gone just as fast as she’d appeared. Q stares at the remains of her once beautiful gun and shakes her head slightly to clear it.

She’s barely on time for the meeting, but it goes swimmingly, for once.

\--

Q’s been tweaking Bond’s new gun for the better part of the week – an adjustment to the palm-print sensor, several rounds of software recalibrations - most of which don’t require Bond’s presence. Bond loiters around her office anyway, touching the projects in progress with curious fingers and generally being a nuisance. Q doesn't mind it, though: Bond’s right arm is tucked against her body in a discreet black sling, and the longer Q can keep her eyes on her most difficult double-oh, the less a chance Bond has to go out looking for trouble and break her arm for real.

In theory, anyway.

“007,” Q says mildly, her eyes fixed on the readouts from the gun, “Please refrain from touching that. It’s an untested prototype.” She doesn’t say, _it will blow your hand off_ , because, knowing Bond, that might actually encourage her. Good thing the injector pen Bond had been about to palm has no payload in it, but she doesn’t need to know that.

The corner of Bond’s lips curls up. “Why, Q,” she purrs, striding purposefully over and around the desk, leaning her hip next to Q’s elbow, “you lured me into your underground lair – for what?”

Q stares up at her over the rim of her glasses. Bond is as immaculately put together as always, her slightly messy braid the only concession to the enforced downtime. Her skirt rides up as she slides a little higher onto Q’s desk, and in her peripheral vision Q can see one tantalizing thigh, golden skin accentuated by the colour of Bond’s stockings.

Bond looks down at Q like she expects the answer to be something completely inappropriate. Luckily for Q’s sanity, they are interrupted by Tanner.

“007,” he says, clearing his throat, “Q." He looks between them, appraising the situation in a flash. Q knows what it looks like: a bored double-oh, currently unfit for active missions, making a move on her Quartermaster. Just another day in the office for Six.

Tanner gives her a quick, sympathetic smile, before saying, “007, M would like to see you now.”

Bond slides off the desk, completely unruffled, and her left hand brushes lightly over Q’s shoulder. Q absolutely doesn’t slump in relief when they are gone. She doesn’t know what she would have done.

Probably sat there, too stunned to move, her mind supplies. Q resolutely turns back to her program.

\--

Q spends much longer than expected on the gun. One moment, it’s eight pm and the night shift is trickling in; the next, it’s going on two in the morning and the numbers on her screen don’t make sense anymore.

She disconnects the data cable, slides the cover plate back on the gun and locks it in her tiny desk safe. She’ll get up and go home in a minute, she thinks. She just needs to rest her eyes for a bit.

Q wakes up around five in the morning, bleary-eyed and disoriented. Her glasses are digging painfully into her cheek. There’s a cup of tea in front of her face, still steaming gently, and a jacket draped over her shoulders. Not hers, she realizes as she pulls the lapels around herself – slightly larger in the shoulders, silk lining, a beautiful deep blue with a thin, barely visible pinstripe – Bond’s, then. It smells like her perfume and the cigarette she must’ve smoked in the west service stairwell, the one with the tweaked smoke alarm. Q pulls up the collar and presses her face into it. It’s not as good as an embrace, not even as good as the fleeting touch Bond left her with earlier that evening, but it’s soft and sleek and still a little warm. Q wonders how it would have felt if she were to wear it, and nothing else, the lining skin-warm and catching on her nipples. Would Bond watch, her eyes hot? Would she press Q into the bed? Would she –

Q drapes the jacket carefully over her chair, to give back to 007 in the morning, gathers her bag and her coat, and locks down the workstation.

Miraculously, the gun is still in the safe where she left it.

\--

The thing is, Q finally decides, she has become too preoccupied with the matter of Bond to properly react. Maybe next time she should try touching back.

\--

The next time comes after a week of complete, utter hell. It begins with 008 infiltrating a human trafficking ring in Russia, followed by a slew of budget corrections from Mallory, and finally with 003 meeting unforeseen complications while tailing a high-profile target in Milan. Between 008’s mission becoming a hostages-and-bomb situation, arguing over budget, and an accident in Chemical Lab Two, Q hasn’t seen the inside of her flat in five days. She can barely stand upright anymore – she’s been subsisting on coffee and catnaps, and the only thing that keeps her going at this point is the need to ensure the safe return of her agents. By the time 003 and 008 both report the successful end of their respective missions, Q is ready to fold herself into a tiny ball and sleep for twenty hours straight. She assigns the clean-up and airlift to her minions, leaves R in charge, and stumbles back into her office. She intends to put her coat on, ring up the company car service, and crawl right back out towards the carpark, but instead finds herself on the sofa wedged between the welding desk and the bookcase. Someone is shaking her awake.

“Q,” the familiar voice says, “Q, you need to get up. We both know I can’t carry you”.

It’s Bond. Her arm is still in a sling, but there’s talk that it’s coming off soon; she's certainly made herself enough of a nuisance to both M and Medical for them to be ready to send her out at the first opportunity. She’s kneeling by Q’s head, her left hand brushing the hair out of Q’s face with excruciating gentleness.

“Come on, darling,” she says. “Time for good little Quartermasters to go home. Up you get.”

Q could weep with how much she wants to stay horizontal and unconscious, but instead levers herself up, straightens her glasses, and slips into her coat on autopilot. Bond already has her bag and laptop. Q tries to wind the scarf around her neck with clumsy fingers and huffs in frustration when it refuses to cooperate. Bond is smiling at her – the same secretive, barely-there curl of her beautiful mouth that only ever seems to appear when Q is in the room. Their walk towards the lift is more suited to something out of a zombie movie – well, Q is the zombie, shuffling along with her eyes barely open, hair wild, clothes in mild disarray. Bond is still the picture of absolute perfection, even in a pair of jeans, a dark jumper and a navy peacoat. Her heels click softly as she walks by Q’s side, Q’s bag over her shoulder, her left hand hovering protectively under Q’s elbow. Someone must’ve gotten her out here after hours, Q suddenly realizes; she never shows up at Six looking so casual, like she’d been having a pint and a night out in the local pub. (Q suspects Tanner; the man misses nothing, even when he gives the impression of not being in the know.)

In the lift, Q’s resolve to keep her eyes open and walk on her own steam suddenly crumbles.

“Oh no”, she hears Bond say. A strong arm slides around Q’s waist, halts her barely-controlled slide to the floor. “Q. Q, stay awake. I wasn’t joking about not being able to carry you.”

When Q squints her aching eyes open, Bond is peering at her. She has taken her arm out of the sling. The knuckles of her right hand are brushing at Q’s cheeks, Q’s forehead, the tip of her nose. Q’s had enough of this – this game of cat and mouse, both of them waiting for the other one to make a move, so she leans in and kisses Bond. It’s clumsy and uncoordinated, more of a peck on the corner of Bond’s mouth than an actual kiss, but Bond groans and kisses her back for real, brief and heated.

“You need rest,” she says, but her eyes are dark and full of want.

“Then do it again when I’m awake,” Q manages to say against her mouth, and Bond growls under her breath and kisses her again.

When the lift stops and the doors slide open, Bond steers them towards her car, pours Q into the passenger seat with utmost care before settling into the driver's seat. Q snags a hand into the lapel of Bond’s peacoat, pulls her in for another semi-uncoordinated snog, awkward with the gearshift between them. She’s going to need to wipe the footage from the lift and the garage first thing in the morning, but right now, she doesn’t have it in herself to care. Bond is bracketing her in, nosing at Q’s temple. It feels absolutely wonderful, and Q doesn’t hesitate to say so.

“The things I want to do to you,” Bond murmurs. Her mouth is bitten red and her pupils are wide. Q’s glasses sit crooked on her nose; Bond straightens them.

“I want you to fuck me in your jacket and nothing else,” Q hears herself saying, “The blue one.” She’d be embarrassed about her failing brain-to-mouth filter, but Bond groans and bites her lip.

“You little devil”, she says, buckling Q in and putting the car into gear smoothly, none of her usual theatrics. “In the morning, then, or as soon as you are more awake”.

“Promise?” Q asks. The car’s interior is blessedly warm, and without the heady excitement of kissing she feels sleepy all over again.

Bond’s hand rests briefly on her knee. “Yes, Q,” she says, “I promise”.

\--

In the morning, Q wakes up with Bond curled around her like a large cat, all long, graceful limbs, her face soft with sleep; Q feels comfortable and content like she hasn’t in years. She presses her face to Bond’s neck, slides her arm around Bond’s waist. 

Bond pulls her closer.


End file.
